Different color options for web pages

[mortaine]

Green background. Orange links and white text.

It's obvious that nobody took a usability class.

I realize some of us LOVE the green and white and orange. However, for many, it's a nightmare. The orange with green background does not have a high enough contrast to be read on a LCD screen. White on dark background is fine for short-term reading, but really hard on the eyes as well.

And if it's not hard enough to read, it causes headaches from the sound (monitors change pitch when there's a full-background color or picture on a web page). For myself, this alone is irritating enough to want to disable all the colors on the Cantr site.

I know of at least one person who would have come to Cantr, looked at the page, and gone away because she simply would not have been able to use it. Not that she would have had a hard time or would have disdained it or found it ugly. I mean: she could not have been able to USE it at all.

I recommend:
A more usable interface. Black on white text, PLEASE. Consult the universal design suggestions at W3C.
No red text on green backgrounds. It's worse than orange. Many notes use red text. A white background would make them less headache-inspiring.
Any formatting should be done with CSS so web browsers can easily override it.
For those who love the green, make an option to use the old green-and-white-and-orange interface. This option can be set in the user's preferences.

[Surly]

I got bored and confused halfway through that explanation... but what I read sounded like a fair argument. I myself would continue to honour the orange and green of Cantr... but I suppose not everyone has such dedication. If they want new colours, and they can explain how to do it, all power to 'em, I say.

[SekoETC]

It's NOT the programmer's fault that some old notes have red and blue titles. It's just because people tend to write the name of the color rather than the hexacode. Those things are now disabled and new cannot be created but the old ones remain because no one dares to touch them.

The green and orange thing is not so bad, it might be if it was the other way around. Orange is a strange solution but energetic and distinctive. And green, if I'd make a game it would definately be green. Except now that I've seen Cantr I might have to choose something else since green is just the essence of Cantr.

[mortaine]

Seko, that's all fine and dandy. You like the colors. Great. But they're unreadable to others. Why not have an option for those whose eyes start to water when they're trying to read the page?

I didn't say the programmers were at fault for the colors in the notes, but rather that the colors in the notes are a problem for usability.

[SekoETC]

Isn't there an option in internet explorer to overwrite the colours of web pages? I don't know many games that would offer several colour options. Actually at the moment only one pops in my mind and that one didn't work otherwise. If there's not much trouble then having a dropdown box somewhere for choosing between the original colouring and reader-friendly one then that would be appriciated, but people have survived without it this far so if adding it is not so simple then other things can be seen more important.

[The Industriallist]

Just a note...actually I believe that light text on dark is supposed to produce less strain in extended use. Though I could be wrong.

[The Sociologist]

Just a note...actually I believe that light text on dark is supposed to produce less strain in extended use. Though I could be wrong.

And a green/white contrast is likewise less of a strain than black/white. That I know for certain.

I'm sorry though to hear some find it a problem. With a good monitor it shouldn't be.

[west]

For me, taking the green away from cantr is like taking the peanut away from pb&j. It's the whole atmosphere of the place. Cantr would seem a lot less organic and real if it was b/w.

Anyway, any browser ought to be able to override the normal colors, or you can create a program (as I think Anthony has) to change it for you.

[Nick]

Heresy!

[Birdsall007]

I totally agree with this. Think of the times where you try to speak to someone who has left the area, you get a message appear with red text on a green background. Now think of the people who suffer from red/green colour blindness. They see nothing. And this is just one of the times that this colour combination happens. I also know that there are other combinations of colour blindness that exist that need to be catered for.

I think that there should be an option to change the colours, probably with just original and high contrast options. It shouldn't be too difficult to do either.

[wulf]

It would be great to have a "skinnable Cantr". The way to do it is to define all the elements by function and then put the colours / layout into a CSS file, rather than relying on deprecated methods such as the font element.

For example, you could create a class called "alert" for alerts:

Code: Select all

.alert { font-weight: bold; color: green; background-color: red; }

That's the inaccessible version but you could then give players a chance to choose an alternative stylesheet, where a different set of rules could be specified.

It would be even better if you could specify different skins for different characters. I'm not sure quite how many different types of element there are but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to come up with several different themes that cover them all.

Wulf

[mortaine]

Everyone who's said "oh, just override it in your browser" seems to believe that:
a) everyone has total control over their web browser
b) everyone is using the same browser as them
c) everyone is using the same browser all the time
d) everyone wants to override all of their websites' colors.

Cantr is the only website I have a consistent problem with. And you can keep green, just don't make it a full-screen background color. Use it as an accent color. Or, make a second option, like a skin.

I don't have total control over my browser at work. For instance, I cannot clear my own history settings (grumble). While this might be a good argument for me not to log on to Cantr at work, the work computer has a full-sized monitor. At home, I'm on a laptop, where the low-contrast between the orange and green gets really irritating.

I don't necessarily use the same browser as you, nor all the same time. I use IE at work, but Mozilla at home. Mozilla is my browser of preference. Sometimes I also use Safari, or Firefox-- it really depends on where I'm logging in from, and what's available to me.

I shouldn't have to override the colors of every website just to view Cantr. This change would also make it so that people who use public computers, like at a library, don't have to tweak the library's computer every time they sit down to login, and then remember to change the settings back before they leave.

[Solfius]

I personally find black on white hurts my eyes, whereas green backgrounds are dark enough not to pose a problem.

I would be sad to see the green go because of that.

[SekoETC]

I guess it would hurt less if the text was of the same shade as the background but much lighter. For example dark green background and light green text (and not meaning a screaming neon green but something close to light gray with a bit of yellow in it). Dark background is a good thing, it doesn't hurt the eyes. They say for people with reading disorders a blue background is the easiest to read somehow. Anyway, if the background should be white it should definately be off-white, maybe light gray, instead of pure screaming #FFFFFF, that would be just painful.

[Solfius]

ooo, not blue, when I read text on a blue background, especially white text, the background seems to flicker like a dodgy fluroscent tube